‘This Is Not an Accident’: Note Found in Car That Driver Used to Slam Into Berlin Crowd, Police Say

German police have arrested the 29-year-old German-Armenian driver of a silver Renault car that hit a crowd of people including a group of 10th grade students in Berlin on Wednesday morning, injuring at least 12 students and killing at least one woman, who is thought to be a teacher of the students. A second teacher was badly injured, according to Berlin police.

Late Wednesday afternoon in Berlin, police told reporters that they found a note in the car that leads them to believe “this is not an accident.” They then evacuated the area around the shopping complex as a precautionary measure based on information garnered from the man—who was known to police—and his connections, they say.

Police said five people sustained life-threatening injuries—including a pregnant woman with broken hips—and three are in serious condition. Several others were treated on the scene for minor injuries, Berlin police said.

Authorities did not immediately confirm whether the act was intentional or an accident, but early indications suggested the driver—now in custody—may have targeted the crowd, according to Bild news outlet. Cops later said he was living in Berlin and had a police record. Photos after the incident show him handcuffed and surrounded by police. At least two witnesses told local media outlets that he tried to flee and passersby stopped him until he could be apprehended.

Accounts from witnesses paint a picture of mayhem with the man driving full throttle toward the crowd of students, then backing up and driving several hundred yards down the road before crashing through the window of a Douglas perfume shop. No one was injured inside the shop, but one woman was taken to the hospital in shock, police told reporters late Wednesday.

Scottish-American Dr. Who actor John Barrowman, who happened to be on the busy shopping street when the Renault jumped the curb, described a scene of utter chaos that ensued. “It’s really pretty bad, guys,” he said in a video account posted on Twitter.

“There are police behind us, there are other police cars coming. There’s helicopters coming in. This is bad. This is serious, because there’s multiple fatalities,” he said, though police have not confirmed more than one dead person. “There are hundreds of emergency services that are in the area, blocking city block after city block, off. The cordon keeps expanding.”

Heavily armed anti-terrorist police forces were immediately dispatched to the scene, according to social media photos.

The tragedy unfolded very close to where Anis Amri, a Tunisian with Islamist terror ties, killed 11 people after driving a hijacked semi truck into a Berlin Christmas market on the Kurfuerstendamm shopping district in 2016.

Berlin fire service spokesman Stefan Salzwedel confirmed the death of at least one of the people hit.

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